American Horror Story: Roanoke, Chapter 8: Blood and OxyContin

November 8, 2016

November 8, 2016

The bloodbath has begun. With just ten episodes total and only three to go, there’s a lot of shit to wrap up. A lot of people who had better show up as ghosts. A lot of people whose skulls are still in need of cleaving (the disclaimer that “everyone died, we found this stuff” has left a pretty packed schedule of mopping up). Last week’s installment, Part Two of Three Days in Hell, was not as fulfilling as the set-up the week before, but was bloody and clever enough to keep me happy. I miss Cricket, and I miss Rory, but that’s what a haunted house is good for, right? The opportunity to see funny and sexy loved ones drifting around within specific parameters! If we follow Murder House rules (which seem to be a guideline thus far) really anyone can already be dead. I’m hoping for some more surprises in addition to slaughter.

Here we go!

Play-by-play:

Picking up where we left off, with a cleaver in Agnes’s head. Torches outside. Dominic (fake Matt) and Real Shelby make a break for it. Badly.

I’m guessing maybe Finn Wittrock is under all the Polk boils. Time for a monologue to Lee, so I guess if he talks a bunch I’ll better be able to see.

Finally! The Pigman story. And possibly a reference to Freakshow, with the talk about Pigman’s circus inspiration and origins. Yeah, that’s Finn Wittrock. He even shares his Hotel character’s affinity for snorting drugs.

Best line of the episode: “Mama say fear and exhaustion gives the jerky a delicious tang.”

Okay, I’m much more disgusted by the fact that Lee just shared a coke-straw with that dude than the fact that they’re basically cutting off and cooking her piece by piece.

Wait. That makes two unsuspicious deaths. Maybe Guin was right and someone does live through all this, that’s what they meant by “all but one.” I’m betting on Lee. She’s the craftiest. I would have bet on Shelby, considering how good she turned out to be at smashing and stabbing, but obviously not.

Oh shit! Jaw drop confession! I totally believed Lee, too. Oh shit, again! Yeah, if anyone is making it out of here alive, it is definitely her.

As a sidenote from someone who lives in rural America, almost dirty South but not quite, we are not like this. We do not breed with our mamas, hang Confederate flags over the windows of our filthy growhouses, wear ill-fitting unwashed flannel with bib overalls, nor make jerky from interlopers. Of course we collect human teeth, but seriously, who doesn’t? The Tooth Fairy isn’t native to Appalachia. And okay, full disclosure, we love the OxyContin.

Hell yeah! The ladies are kicking some ass!

Pigman in daylight? But no!

… and that’s the end.

Recap:

Blood, blood, running, bashing, blood, the cast is cut down by half once more, blood, rednecks, shaky footage, pot, OxyContin, people in love with recording themselves, blood, Pigman, blood, blood, beef jerky, screaming, flaying, ladies kicking ass, blood, more bashing, sunrise, Pigman—or is it? That’s the big question, yes? Why the re-enactor that played The Butcher’s Son (Wes Bentley with a nonsensical accent) pops up at the front door first thing in the morning. We have two episodes left and almost everyone is dead. I think. Most of my theories have been completely wrong. Who knows why Wes Bentley is there?

This is Season 6’s carnage episode. It is also the episode we realize that no matter how grimy and primitive the Polks seem, somewhere in that filthy, rambling growhouse/garage is a shiny, top-of-the-line food dehydrator. There is no other way they could’ve turned pieces of Lee into tasty jerky so fast!

See you next week!

AMANDA GOWIN

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